JUNE 27, 1947

HYDE PARK, Thursday—I have been taken to task for saying that the individual income-tax reduction bill
of 1947 would have been of benefit to corporations, and I realize that I should have
been more careful, for I know quite well that this particular bill dealt only with
reduction of individual income taxes. In thinking of the whole question of taxes,
however, I have always felt that there ought to be a way, when large corporations
were doing as well as many of them seem to be doing at present, to keep their taxes
up. The tendency, at the present time, is to give them relief as well as to relieve
people in the higher-income brackets who are often associated with corporations or
big business of some kind.

I feel that it would be of value if there were a way to do away with taxes on new
small business enterprises until they showed a certain margin of profit, and perhaps
on all such investments which are experimental but which, if successful, would create
more jobs.

The income tax has always seemed to me a very fair way to tax people and I have no
objection to the theory that every citizen should contribute something, but it seems
to me it should be a very small percentage indeed for incomes in the lower brackets.

If Congress presents a new tax bill to the President to take effect in January instead of in July, I hope that it will be a bill which
corrects some of the inequities in the first one. It should be a bill on which both
the executive and the legislative branches of our Government have been able to cooperate
before its provisions are finally settled upon.

* * *

In the course of the last few days I have received letters about babies and children
for whom foster homes or parents have to be found. There are, of course, many
worthwhile
agencies that are handling this same problem. Many of these organizations find now
that they have to enlarge their facilities in an effort to find foster homes, so that
children who have lived in hospital wards and in temporary shelters for some time
can really obtain proper care.

With additional trained workers, many of these agencies feel they could place more
babies, since many childless couples are anxious to adopt them. In doing so, these
reputable organizations could wipe out the scandalous, recently publicized "baby-selling
racket."

To find good foster parents and to get a child settled in a new home is well
worthwhile
, for that child's whole future depends on the proper decisions being taken. One can
only hope that these services will receive the encouragement of the public since today's
children mean so much to our country's future.

E.R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR
PART PROHIBITED.)